


The Girl Who Told Time

by Butterfly



Series: Scenes from a Resurrection Story [18]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Julia Wicker/23rd Timeline William "Penny" Adiyodi (minor/mentioned), M/M, Margo Hanson/Josh Hoberman (minor/mentioned), Quentin Coldwater/Alice Quinn (past) - Freeform, Quentin Coldwater/Arielle/Eliot Waugh (minor/mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 16:56:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18782341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterfly/pseuds/Butterfly
Summary: Penny watches some minor mending.





	The Girl Who Told Time

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings: brief allusions/mentions of depression, suicidal thoughts, and Christopher Plover. And some discussion of sex toys.

Margo saying 'Clock Barrens' obviously meant a lot to Quentin, but not as much to the rest of them, Penny was relieved to see. Eliot just wrapped an arm around Quentin's shoulders and leaned down to whisper in his ear, getting a lot of words back that were mostly too quick and quiet for Penny to parse.

Still, whatever, Margo and Quentin both knew how to get there, so it was easy enough for Penny to make sure they all arrived safely. He couldn't quite stop himself from wondering about Julia and Kady, and what their plans were for figuring out what had happened to the other Penny, and rescuing him, but he tried not to let it distract him.

The Clock Barrens turned out to be a very small clearing, with tiny trees bounding it, and Jane fucking Chatwin wandering around clipping little clocks off the branches. As far as weird things went, it wasn't too high on the scale but it was still... weird.

“Ah, Margo, I see you recovered Quentin and Eliot from their- ah, deaths, you said? Well done,” Chatwin clasped her hands together over her basket and smiled at them. Quentin was the only one who smiled back, a little nervously. “Well, I assume you're here to ask for something again. Do go ahead and tell me what you need.”

“So. I got the key from your corpse and it worked, but now it's kinda been destroyed,” Margo said. Alice shifted uncomfortably next to her. “We were hoping you might have a lead or a suggestion or, hey, maybe you can just give us yours.”

“That last option would cause quite a nasty paradox,” Chatwin said, still smiling and tilting her head a bit to the side. “Not to be recommended. Taking it out of here would cause the Clock Barrens themselves to collapse and since this is a pocket _outside_ of time, that means it would no longer have been here for you to talk to me about your friends.”

“What- ah. What is the exact way that the key is tied to the Barrens?” Alice asked. “Maybe we can think of some kind of workaround.”

“Ah, Alice. Very well,” Chatwin waved her hand to beckon Alice closer. “I'll tell you the details.”

The technical discussion that followed was, frankly, mostly over Penny's head, though he bet Julia would have enjoyed it – it was focused a lot on the Circumstances and some intricacies of how time and place and magic all interacted to create this small focused place. Alice listened carefully to every word, drinking it all in, while Margo, Eliot, and Quentin looked like they were catching about as many as Penny was. When the initial barrage of words from Jane was done, the round of questions from Alice began.

Penny sighed a bit and went over to look at one of the trees. Well, barely trees. Saplings, maybe. He poked at one of the little clocks and felt a faint buzz of magic. There was power here, but it was very self-contained.

He looked over at the others.

Eliot and Margo seemed to be making an effort not to fuss over Quentin too much. He wasn't sure why, exactly, if it was a suggestion from the therapist or if they just wanted to see how he did back here in Fillory, or maybe they were just dealing with their own shit.

Quentin himself did seem- well, a lot better. Before his resurrection, Penny'd only seen this Quentin smile maybe a handful of times, but these days – especially around Eliot and Julia, and now Margo – he was beginning to see the Quentin he'd known once upon a time, way back when, before his Julia had run off to Fillory and died. A little shy and skittish, but excitable and nerdy and... well, just a person. The person that his Julia had adored with her whole heart, who could make her glow while talking about a silly fantasy series.

He wasn't sure if he was ready to make friends with that person – his timeline's Quentin, he'd liked well enough, before he'd gotten himself and Julia killed – but Penny was starting to see that the Quentin he'd gotten to know over the course of all the bullshit they'd gone through with the monster... it had been a flattened-out version of who the guy really was.

“Okay, everyone,” Alice said loudly. “I have an idea, but we need all of us to make it work. If it does work. Well, we'll find out.”

Chatwin looked mildly pleased. He'd never really gotten to know 'Jane Chatwin' in his own timeline, but nothing he'd heard had impressed him too much. She seemed like most older folks he'd met – set in her ways, using people for her own advantage, and thinking it was all right because she was putting it politely.

“What's your idea?” Eliot asked, leaning on his cane, Margo's hand looped around his other elbow.

Alice let out a quick breath and glanced at Quentin. “Well.” She looked at Penny, bit her lip. “You remember the mirror world?”

“You mean, when-” now Penny found himself looking over at Quentin, who had paled a bit. “What about it?”

Alice's gaze flitted around the entire group, before her mouth twitched a little and she looked down at her hands. “He- he-” She looked up again, directly at Quentin. “You fixed the mirror.”

“Just a minor mending,” Quentin said, dismissively. Eliot straightened up, took a step towards Quentin, reaching out and touching his shoulder. Quentin didn't shake the hand off, but kinda looked like he wanted to. “Um- it wasn't- why are we talking about that?”

“Everett broke a magical object and Quentin was able to use a minor mending to repair, not just the object, but the magic,” Alice said and- oh. _Oh_. Everyone, even him, had been so caught up in Quentin being dead, that they hadn't even considered the implications of how he'd died. “For most magicians, that wouldn't be a _minor_ mending, Q. But it's your discipline. It's what your magic wants to do. So, for you, a minor mending can be a lot more, just like I can do more with light than most magicians, even ones working with more power.”

Margo cocked her head. “You wanna... have Q _mend_ the key, how will that-”

“Because we're all going to break pieces off it,” Eliot said, his hand tightening on Quentin's shoulder. “And have Q fix it over and over. Alice, that would be _exhausting_ for him. The magic in that key would take so much out of him to recreate. It could- he could niffin out, using that much power, no matter what his discipline is.”

“It's a risk,” she said, quietly, to Quentin. “We'll have to take it slowly. Be careful. But I- I saw you remake that mug, Q, and I saw what you did to the mirror. You said you could- you could feel how it was _meant_ to be, that you made it _remember_ what it was. I don't feel that way when I do a minor mending. I just feel the shards and force them together until they fit. But, yes, it is a risk.”

“ _Q_ ,” Eliot said, and this time Quentin did pull away from him, from the whole group, turning his back to them and putting his hands over his face. Eliot glared at Alice, his expression tightening. “What the hell, Alice? We didn't bring you with us so that you could- could fucking have Q _sacrifice_ himself again.”

Alice's whole body flinched away and her breath caught on a shudder. “That's not- none of the rest of us would even have a chance. You can't do this sort of thing. Not normally. But fixing things is what Q is meant to do.”

“No,” Margo said, wrapping her arms around her stomach. “This idea is horseshit. There has to be a better one. You just spent an hour talking things over with the fucking Watcherwoman and _this_ is the best you two came up with?”

“Do you want to save Fillory? Do you want to see Josh ever again? Do you want to kill Plover?” Alice asked, her chin lifting. “Anyway, it's Quentin's choice. Not mine, not yours. Not Eliot's.”

“We don't even know if I can really do that,” Quentin said, turning slightly. He was looking out past the edge of the Barrens. “We could break the key and then I can't fix it and we fuck Jane over for no good reason.”

“Right. We should do a test first. A different magical object. One less important,” Alice said. She looked at Margo, hesitantly, but Margo shook her head.

“Q, honey, we don't have to do this,” Margo said, going to him and touching his arm. “We can all talk to Jane some more. Find another way.”

Quentin stared out for a while longer, and Penny was starting to wonder if he'd even heard, when he said, “No, I- if Alice- if she thinks this is the only way, she's probably right. We have to at least give it a shot.”

“Or we can just let Fillory go fuck itself,” Eliot said and he sounded – jesus, he sounded like he meant it. Margo looked back at him, startled and- and a little hurt. “It's not worth your life.”

“Not your call to make,” Quentin said, shaking off Margo's hand and looking straight at Eliot. “Alice is right about that. You can't- you can't keep doing this, El. You can't- she's right. I have to at least try. Don't we owe Josh and Fen that much? Don't we owe the people of Fillory that much?”

“They can rot in a ditch for all I care,” Eliot said, instantly. Viciously. Margo stood there next to Quentin, looking stunned. “What the _fuck_ has Fillory done for you that it deserves anything more than you've already given? You don't owe this damn world anything, Q.”

“Yeah, I felt that way, too,” Quentin said. “Bitter and angry that it had taken so much from me. I don't wanna feel that way anymore, El. Fillory... yeah, a lot about it was disappointing. But one of the things- one of the things I've been talking in- with Roxann... is that not all of it was bad. Fillory gave us Teddy, El. And I made myself bury that feeling because it hurt, but I- I am glad we had him. I am glad we had Arielle and the mosaic and- and- I owe Fillory for that much, at least. This is my decision, Eliot. There's no monster here for you to shoot to try to stop me.”

“ _Fuck you_ , Coldwater,” Eliot spat out, and he spun around and stalked to the edge of the Clock Barrens. Penny avoided everyone's eyes as they all pretended that they couldn't hear Eliot doing his best not to cry. Even Margo didn't go over to him and- yeah, Eliot had basically just said he was okay with Josh Hoberman staying dead if it meant Quentin was alive, so. Penny got how she felt.

“Um- Alice. You said we should do a test first?” Quentin's voice had lost a lot of its certainty and he kept almost-but-not-quite looking over at Eliot. “What were you thinking of using?”

“Well, I know Margo brought along a magical artifact,” Alice said and she was- blushing?

“You wanna use that?” Margo's voice was husky and he could see a glimmer at the corner of her eyes, but that mask of hers was holding up. “Kinky, Quinn. Didn't know you had it in you.” And she reached into the traveling bag she'd brought along and pulled out a long, cylindrical object in a cloth bag. She tugged the bag open and pulled out-

“What the fuck?” Penny sputtered out, not able to stop himself. “You thought you were gonna have time on this trip for- for-”

“Oh, leave it be, Adiyodi,” Margo said, but with no heat. “It's a perfectly reasonable item to bring for a potentially long journey.”

“If you're a size queen,” Quentin said, and he smiled at her, though it was a little shaky around the edges. “Jesus, Margo, how did it even fit into the bag?” Then he seemed to catch himself and added, “Right. Magic. Forget I asked.”

Margo held the- the huge fucking dildo in her hands and raised an eyebrow at Alice. “Well, will you do the honors of breaking a piece of this off for me?”

Alice sighed but brought up her hands, doing a quick, contained spell focused on- on the tip. It cracked off and fell to the ground, then Alice stooped down to pick it up. “All right, Q, it's all yours. Try to fix it without the missing piece.”

Quentin took Alice's place in front of Margo, and started working. It was- it _did_ remind Penny of the mirror world, how Quentin had been able to fix the broken mirror without taking any focus off of talking to Everett. Fixing things is what he's meant to do, Alice had said. Quentin hadn't lived long enough in Penny's timeline to discover his discipline and Penny wondered if maybe he would have settled down a little if he had, because Quentin now, in this focused moment, seemed serene and confident in a way Penny didn't think his Quentin had ever been. At least not before he'd been the Beast.

“Okay,” Quentin said, as the lines of light faded away, and the dildo certainly looked the same as before. Alice opened her hand and still had the broken tip. Quentin nodded. “Let's give it a try.”

Margo did a quick tut and- and the dildo was apparently a magic-powered vibrator so, there was that.

“It's working,” Margo said and she- she sounded like she wasn't entirely sure if she was happy about that. “Q replaced an entire section with his own magic and it's still working.” She stopped the spell, put the dildo back into its bag and put it away again.

Quentin put a hand on her arm and said, gently, “I'll go talk to him.” She nodded, reached out and touched his cheek lightly before he went.

The Clock Barrens was small, but Penny and the others edged away, closer to Jane Chatwin, to try to give Quentin and Eliot a little privacy. The conversation was hushed but- did not seem to be going very well.

“So, we take turns breaking off pieces of the key,” Penny said, mostly to avoid any nosy impulses on his part to to listen in. “And we keep them away from Quentin while he's repairing the key, and then he tries to make a whole new key out of the pieces. Gotta say, that last step sounds- well, we better make sure he takes a nap and has a juice box beforehand, because that is gonna take a _lot_ out of him. And it still might not work.”

“He is a determined young man,” Jane Chatwin said. “Not the greatest magician among you, to be certain, but he would rather die than give up on his friends.”

“Maybe not the right tone to be striking just now.” Margo put her hands on her hips and tilted her head challengingly. “Quentin dying is kinda a touchy subject.”

“As I've seen,” Chatwin said, making no attempt to hide the fact that she was watching Eliot and Quentin talk. “Eliot always does get rather attached to him, doesn't he? Poor fellow.”

“Eliot doesn't need your fucking pity,” Margo said, coldly.

“Oh, I would never dream of pitying Eliot Waugh.” The slight amusement in Chatwin's voice made Margo straighten up protectively. “I'm well-aware of how sensitive he is to such things.”

Penny was almost looking forward to what Margo was going to say in return- but Quentin was coming back now, tugging Eliot along with him. Eliot's eyes were red at the edges and he didn't look at any of them, only said, “Okay. Let's do this thing, if we're going to do it.”

And so that was that.

It was a simple enough process, really. Jane Chatwin held the key for one of them to do a controlled battle spell that would break off a small piece. The piece would be held separate and then Quentin would mend the key.

Simple, but Alice had been right about the risk. The magical dome holding the Clock Barrens together cracked and the air shimmered as soon as a piece was taken off the key and shuddered messily back into place when the repair was complete. And even the first time, Quentin looked tired after he finished.

After the third time, Margo and Eliot insisted that he rest for a while and plied him with the food and drink they'd brought along.

After the sixth time, his hands kept shaking, even after a break.

Alice looked more and more nervous and Eliot got paler and paler.

They were ten times in when Quentin fainted afterwards, and the group decided he was done for the day. He protested but even Penny found himself arguing on the side of taking a damn break. Quentin looked- worn out, ten years older, and he kept blinking and squinting at people, so Penny was pretty sure he had blurry eyesight too.

While Quentin slept, his head in Margo's lap as she stroked through his hair, Alice counted the pieces they'd gathered and shook her head. “We're maybe a quarter of the way there.”

“Can't we do bigger pieces?” Penny asked. “I don't know if he can keep going like this.”

Eliot, who had been unsteadily pacing, stopped abruptly, leaning heavily on his cane. “We can't. Even mending a break that small is taking too much out of him. Bigger pieces could mean- no, they have to be small.”

“Eliot's right,” Alice said, in a tiny voice.

“Big of you to admit that now,” he shot back. “When we're already fucking committed.”

“We could give up,” Alice said. Shakily. “If it gets too bad.”

“He won't, you know that.” Eliot shook his head and returned to his pacing, though every step looked like it hurt.

So it went. Quentin woke up and got back to work, and his friends worried about him.

They took another longer rest seven more repairs in, and Penny found himself the somewhat unwilling voyeur to a conversation between Margo, Eliot, and Alice that was probably too personal for him to be hearing but that he didn't really have any place to avoid.

It started with Alice saying, to Margo, “You touch him a lot more now. Q, I mean.”

He was sleeping on top of her again, one hand wrapped around her waist. Margo smoothed her fingertips over his shoulders and shrugged. “Well, El and I talked about some things, while he was gone. And I guess it was something- something that Coldwater kinda envied about my relationship with El. He doesn't- he doesn't really like being touched by most people-” Alice nodded. “-but when it's someone he cares about, he enjoys being, I don't know. Coddled, I guess.”

“For a while, we slept three to a bed, just holding onto him,” Eliot added, quietly. “Me and Arielle on either side.”

Penny, in trying not to impose on the conversation, accidentally found himself meeting eyes with Jane Chatwin, who was listening with a great deal of interest. She winked at him. He looked away.

When Quentin woke up again, he managed another eight times before he admitted that he needed to sleep. This time, he'd half-collapsed onto Eliot while talking, so it was Eliot's lap he ended up in for his nap, Eliot's hand stroking through his hair and over his face. It felt- it felt more intimate than when Quentin had been wrapped around Margo. Alice seemed to feel the same way, drifting over to sit next to Penny.

“I don't know what I'll do if this does kill him,” she said, quietly enough that it wouldn't reach Margo and Eliot. “I don't think I could forgive myself.”

“He accepted the risks,” Penny said. “But, I get you. Watching someone you love on the edge is tough.”

“Even when you aren't sure if they love you back.” Her shoulders slumped. “I noticed- you and Julia? Why'd you come with us instead of staying with her?”

“Julia. _This_ Julia. She's attracted to me, sure. She likes me. She is not in love with me.” Penny looked down at his hands. Sighed. “Maybe one day. Or maybe I fucked it all up when I stole her choice away from her. I didn't- I didn't think, is the stupid part. I was just- she was in pain and I wanted the pain to stop, but I didn't want to lose her. It was- so selfish.”

“Q did that to me once,” Alice said. “I was- uh. I was a niffin. He figured out how to bring me back. And I didn't wanna come back. I was mad at him, and I fucked him, and then I screwed everyone over. Well, I guess you were there for that last part.” Her voice trembled. “And then I spent- god, _so long_ wishing that I'd forgiven him sooner. So that we could- so that I could have gone back to him while he still loved me that way.” Her breath caught. “But- um. Looking back, I don't think I could have. Forgiven him sooner. He took something beautiful away from me and I had to- I had to process it on my own. Even though it meant that when I was ready to take him back, he'd already moved on.”

“You sure that he has?” Penny asked.

Alice stared at Eliot's fingers as they traced gentle lines on Quentin's face. “I think he moved on a while ago. A lifetime ago.”

“You okay with that?”

“Not sure I get a choice,” she said. “What about you- if Julia takes... a year, two years to forgive you enough to give a relationship a chance... do you think you'll still want to be with her?”

“Probably,” Penny admitted. “Though I guess I can't know for sure.”

When Quentin opened his eyes this time, he smiled sleepily up at Eliot and caught his hand, bringing it down to his mouth and kissing his fingertips. Then he seemed to remember where – when – he was, scrambling to his feet and blushing.

And so he started again, until they finally had enough pieces.

“And now you, baby Q, need to eat and sleep and eat again, until you are feeling absolutely in perfect condition,” Margo said, framing his face in her hands. “Okay?”

When they were ready, they laid the pieces of the key out on the grass, and Quentin settled himself down in front of them, shaking his hands out before he started.

Eliot was back to pacing in the background, his cane thumping on the grass. Alice stood there, staring at Quentin, wringing her hands, until Margo came up to her and pulled her away, talking to her quietly. Penny did his best to just wait patiently, ready to blip them all out in a hurry if the Clock Barrens went sideways on them.

And Jane Chatwin stood next to one of her tiny trees, but her eyes were on Quentin, and she was smiling.

It took- it took a lot longer than the previous mendings. There was sweat on Quentin's face and he paused slightly, once or twice, to stop his hands from shaking. And then, near the end, there was a moment when a streaking, shimmering blue light came ghosting up from his veins, and Penny's breath caught in his throat as he watched.

But then it was done. There was a key there, on the grass, identical to the one they'd all been breaking pieces off of – Penny reached down and picked it up, as Margo and Eliot both swooped in to check on Quentin, touching him all over where he was shivering. Alice stayed a couple of feet back, hands still clenched tightly together, her forehead lined with concern.

“Well, then,” Jane Chatwin said from next to him, startling him so much that he just barely kept himself from traveling away. “Let's compare, shall we?”

She plucked the key from his hand and examined it, holding it close against the watch, and making a lot of “hmm” and “tsk, yes, I see” noises.

“I must say, Quentin, I am very impressed,” Chatwin said, kneeling down on the grass. Quentin raised his head to look at her, squinting a little. “It appears to be a perfect match. Congratulations.” She took his hand – prompting glares from Margo and Eliot – and placed the key in his palm, closing his fingers around it. “And I must thank you. As someone who has seen you die far too many times, it was a genuine pleasure to watch you create something instead.” She lifted her hand to his cheek. “Now, off you go. You can't stay in here forever. You have work to do, out there in the linear world.”

“No argument from me,” Margo said, as she and Eliot helped Quentin get to his feet. “And, full offense, but I kinda hope I never see your face again.”

“Not the first time you've said that to me, but I understand,” Chatwin said. “I wish you all the very best of luck.”

“Goodbye, Jane,” Quentin said, his hand still tightly clutching the key. “I- thank you, too. For Fillory.”

As they left the Clock Barrens, Penny glanced behind, and she was staring after them – after Quentin – with an odd, wistful look on her face.

What a strange fucking lady.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title is one of the titles of the in-universe "Fillory and Further" books.


End file.
